We investigate the role of leadership in the outcome of militarized conflict. Specifically, we examine whether commanding officers systematically affected the outcome of battles during the American Civil War. Using battle-level data and biographical information about hundreds of leaders on both sides, we determine whether different commanders can produce different outcomes, and which attributes of military leaders are most closely associated with battlefield success. Our analysis suggests higher-quality leaders do generate better outcomes on the battlefield, whereas the effects of loyalty are mixed. These results have implications for the study of conflict as well as bureaucratic politics.

Models of behavior on the U.S. Supreme Court almost universally assume that the justices’ behavior depends on the characteristics of the individual justices. However, few prior studies have attempted to measure the justices’ individual characteristics beyond their ideological preferences. In contrast, we apply recent advances in machine learning to measure the “Big Five” personality traits of U.S. Supreme Court justices serving during the 1946 through 2015 terms based on the language in their written opinions. We then conduct an empirical application to demonstrate the importance of these Supreme Court Individual Personality Estimates (SCIPEs) in predicting the justices’ behaviors.

Why do voters vote for lesser-known challengers over more well-known incumbents? Here, we focus on risk aversion and build on recent work in political psychology, integrating the study of incumbency advantage into a more general political psychology framework linking Big Five personality traits to political outcomes. Using data from the 2014 and 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies, we find that more Open respondents are more willing to vote for riskier House challengers at higher rates, though the extent of this trait's effect is conditional on partisanship.

We analyze appointee positions subject to Senate-confirmation without a confirmed appointee in office. These “vacant” appointee positions are byproducts of American constitutional design, shaped by the interplay of institutional politics and agency administration. We analyze position vacancies across 416 president-appointed, Senate-confirmed (PAS) positions in executive branch departments and single-headed agencies during the George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama presidential administrations, between January 1989 and January 2014. We develop a theoretical model in order to uncover the dynamics of vacancy onset and vacancy length. We then specify empirical models and report results highlighting three themes in appointee politics: position, timing, and principal-agent relations. We find high-status PAS positions reduce the frequency and duration of appointee vacancies. We also find that principal-agent considerations are important from the Senate’s perspective, as PAS positions in agencies that are ideologically opposed to the Senate majority are less likely to be vacant.

​​​​Works In Progress

"Advice and Consent in the American Civil War: Senate Voting on Military Nominations." (With J. Tyson Chatagnier)